This section shares years of learning from experienced practitioners about what works when recruiting Community Parent volunteers. Please also see 'Your volunteer recruitment strategy' within the 'Setting up your programme' guide.
Recruiting community parent volunteers: What we've learnt
A low key, informal and relational approach should be used throughout the recruitment process - your staff need to mirror the relationship building ethos of the programme.
Responding to initial enquiries:
- It can be daunting for someone to take the first step into being a volunteer – be aware that their confidence may need building first
- Work hard at being relaxed, friendly and approachable in the way you respond – chat informally on the phone
- Don’t ask them to fill in a form in the first instance – it may be better to do this at the end of the taster course
- Offer to meet in an informal setting e.g. meet in a local coffee shop or invite them to a virtual coffee morning to meet others who are interested and to find out more information.
Important:
- Carefully explore the motivation to volunteer – is there a balance between personal gain and a firm commitment to supporting others?
- Adapt your recruitment strategy to suit your unique local area
- Home visiting requires a specific set of skills and personal qualities - be strict about meeting your recruitment criteria
- Have a range of alternative volunteer roles at hand (both within and outside your organisation).
How to recruit volunteers
The taster course is a great opportunity for facilitators and participants to explore motivations and suitability for volunteering.
Use the activities to enable discussion and reflection about:
- The attributes needed
- Reasons for becoming a volunteer
- Personal experiences.
Listen carefully to what potential volunteers say during the taster course and observe whether they can commit time to attend the 4 sessions.
Use the mentoring session at the end of the course to reflect on each participant’s strengths and to steer them onto appropriate next steps.
Why a taster course is important
Useful tips:
- The course may be attractive to people who want to consider a new direction e.g. their youngest child has just started school
- Promote the taster as an informal, fun, and friendly course
- Run informal community events that gently encourage potential participants to sign up and ‘give it a go’.
Please download below the following useful tools and resources:
- Equal opportunities monitoring form
- Example presentation of recruitment event
- Expression of interest form
- Letter to offer a place on taster course
- Personal invitation to recruitment event.
Useful tools and resources
Added 14/01/2020Please sign in to download this file.
- This requires careful mentoring, kindness, skill and sensitivity
- Enable reflection: are there things you noticed during the taster course that you could explore further to enable the applicant to make the right decision?
- Trust your gut instincts and deal with it early.